超過專家：凝聚全國英語專業教學指導委員會主任何其莘教授數十年教學、科研及教材編寫經驗.是何其莘教授的又一次自我超過。
超過國界：彙集眾多中美名家的經驗與智慧，吸收國際先進理念，旨在提升本土教學水平。
超過傳統：打破以功能訓練為主的傳統教材編寫模式，充分考慮當前教學實踐，新教學方法和手段，突出文化特征，培養學生人文素質和文化意識。

培養高校英語專業學生的文化素養要有合適的教材：不是那種僅僅文字漂亮卻沒有太多文化內涵的傳統教材，而是具有時代特征，選自政治、經濟、社會真實交往，含有豐富文化內涵的讀本，同時兼有能夠啟發學生思考和分析的活潑、互動的教學方法以及配套的課外實踐活動。這就是中國人民大學出版社推出“超過概念”這套英語專業繫列教材的宗旨。

何其莘，博士，北京外國語大學教授，博士生導師。1994年－2005年任北外副校長，現為中國人民大學外國語學院院長、清華大學雙聘教授、廣東外語外貿大學等29所院校的客座教授、教育部高校英語專業教學指導委員會主任、全國翻譯碩士專業學位教育指導委員會副主任、全國英國文學學會會長、全國有突出貢獻的中青年專家。
楊孝明，博士，教授。畢業於西安外國語大學，後獲英國諾丁漢大學英語碩士學位、美國鮑陵格林州立大學英語博士學位。在俄亥俄州鮑陵格林大學和新澤西州海洋郡學院任教二十餘年，教授英文寫作、英美文學和語言學等課程，現為新澤西州海洋郡學院英語繫終身教授。

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UNIT ONE
Thinking Starters
Text A: Speech at Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Text B: Just Be Yourself
Reading Skills: Comparison and Contrast (I)
Readings and Self-testing
UNIT TWO
Thinking Starters
Text A: War
Text B: A Glimpse of Heaven
Reading Skills: Comparison and Contrast (II)
Readings and Self-testing
UNIT THREE
Thinking Starters
Text A: School Violence Is Exaggerated by the Media
Text B: The History of Gun Control
Reading Skills: Long and Difficult Sentences (I)
Readings and Self-testing
UNIT FOUR
Thinking Starters
Text A: Speech at Kean College
Text B: The Anthropology of Manners
Reading Skills: Long and Difficult Sentences (II)
Readings and Self-testing
UNIT FIVE
Thinking Starters
Text A: Im Still Me!--Steves Story
Text B: Sex, Lies and Conversation
Reading Skills: Fact and Opinion (I)
Readings and Self-testing
#NIT SIX
Thinking Starters
Text A: The Case for a Sovereign Quebec
Text B: Violence in the Media
Reading Skills: Fact and Opinion (II)
Readings and Self-testing
UNIT SEVEN
Thinking Starters
Text A: Diplomacy in the Age of Terror
Text B: The Age of Nonpolarity
Reading Skills: Making Inference (I)
Readings and Self-testing
UNIT EIGHT
Thinking Starters
Text A: The Inheritance of Tools
Text B: The Inheritance of Tools (continued)
Reading Skills: Making Inference (11)
Readings and Self-testing
UNITNINE
Thinking Starters
Text A: Two Kinds
Text B: Two Kinds (continued)
Reading Skills: Cause and Effect (I)
Readings and Self-testing
UNITTEN
Thinking Starters
Text A: Why Men Become Men
Text B: A Proposal I Never Thought Id Consider
Reading Skills: Cause and Effect (II)
Readings and Self-testing
ELEVEN
Thinking Starters
Text A: Cyberspace: If You Dont Love It, Leave It
Text B: The Longest Day
Reading Skills: Critical Reading (I)
Readings and Self-testing
UNIT TWELVE
Thinking Starters
Text A: A Little Theory
Text B: The Most Important Book I Read: The Stranger by Albert Camus
Reading Skills: Critical Reading (11)
Readings and Self-testing
UNIT THIRTEEN
Thinking Starters
Text A: Access to Cheap Drugs Can Slow the AIDS Epidemic in Africa
Text B: The Global AIDS Epidemic Is a Serious Problem
Reading Skills: Reading for Main Ideas
Readings and Self-testing
UNIT FOURTEEN
Thinking Starters
Text A: Working for a Constitution: James Madison
Text B: To Move Toward Independence: Thomas Jefferson
Reading Skills: Reading for Thesis Statement
Readings and Self-testing
UNIT FIFTEEN
Thinking Starters
Text A: Sixty Feet Deep
Text B: Green Acres
Reading Skills: Understanding Text Structure and Organization (I)
Readings and Self-testing
UNIT SIXTEEN
Thinking Starters
Text A: The Genes That Jump
Text B: Understanding Eskimo Science
Reading Skills: Understanding Text Structure and Organization (11)
Readings and Self-testing

And yes, there are also porn-oriented services, where people share dirty pictures andcommunicate with one another about all kinds of practices, often anonymously. Whether theseservice encourage the fantasies they depict is subject to debate——the same debate that has ragedabout pornography in other media. But the point is that no one is forcing this stuff on anybody. Whats unique about cyberspace is that it liberates us from the tyranny of government,where everyone lives by the rule of the majority. In a democracy, minority groups and minoritypreferences tend to get squeezed out, whether they are minorities of race and culture orminorities of individual taste. Cyberspace allows communities of any size and kind to flourish; incyberspace, communities are chosen by the users, not forced on them by accidents of geography.This freedom gives the rules that preside in cyberspace a moral authority that rules in terrestrialenvironments dont have. Most people are stuck in the country of their birth, but if you dont likethe rules of a cyberspace community you can just sign off. Love it or leave it. Likewise, if parentsdont like the rules of a given cyberspace community, they can restrict their childrens access to it. Whats likely to happen in cyberspace is the formation of new communities, free of theconstraints that cause conflict on earth. Instead of a global village, which is a nice dream butimpossible to manage, well have invented another world of self-contained communities thatcater to their own members inclinations without interfering with anyone elses. The possibilityof a real market-style evolution of governance is at hand. In cyberspace, well be able to test andevolve rules governing what needs to be governed——intellectual property, content and accesscontrol, rules about privacy and free speech. Some communities will allow anyone in; others willrestrict access to members who qualify on one basis or another. Those communities that proveself-sustaining will prosper （and perhaps grow and split into subsets with ever-more-particularinterests and identities）. Those that cant survive——either because people lose interest or getscared off——will simply wither away.

培養高校英語專業學生的文化素養要有合適的教材：不是那種僅僅文字漂亮卻沒有太多文化內涵的傳統教材，而是具有時代特征，選自政治、經濟、社會真實交往，含有豐富文化內涵的讀本，同時兼有能夠啟發學生思考和分析的活潑、互動的教學方法以及配套的課外實踐活動。這就是中國人民大學出版社推出“超越概念”這套英語專業繫列教材的宗旨。
“超越概念”是一套完整的高校英語專業本科繫列教材，涵蓋了2000年教育部頒布執行的《高等學校英語專業英語教學大綱》中規定的“英語技能”和“英語知識”兩大課程板塊中的所有課程，由一批長期從事國內高校英語專業本科教學的中國教師和一批美國學者（均為20世紀80年代赴美留學，而後在美國大學獲得博士學位和終身教職的華裔教授）合作編寫而成。
與國內高校當前使用比較廣泛的幾套英語專業教材相比，“超越概念”有以下幾個特點：
第一，教材采用了中美教授、學者合作編寫的形式。由中外學者合編教材國內已有先例，但是本套教材無論從編撰者的數量到編寫人員的素質，從雙方合作的廣度到相互交流的深度，從教材種類所涵蓋的範圍到其內容的真實性，都是前所未有的。編寫初始由中方編者提出編寫思路、選材要求，之後將要求交付美方編者，由美方編者在美國選材。在選材過程中，雙方經過多次討論，最後確定每一篇課文的內容與長度。然後由中方編者根據所選內容編寫配套的練習，最後由美方審讀並潤色。這種分工方式最充分地利用了雙方的優勢：中方編者不但有在國外學習、工作、獲取學位的經歷，而且長期在國內高校從事英語教學，對國內學生的需求以及國內現有教材的情況了如指掌，可以準確地把握教材的內容和難易程度。而美方編者的優勢在於對西方，特別是美國的英語教學和文化的認知與了解。他們出國前均為國內高校英語教師，並有在美國大學英語繫不低於20年的教學經驗。他們不但對國外的英語教學了如指掌，更重要的是對英語語言和文化有一種直覺的感知，而這種感知是從任何教科書中學不到的。憑著這種感知，他們不但可以在教材的最終審定過程中杜絕那種語法全對但讀起來不像英語的中式英語，更能夠在選材的過程中準確把握住西方文化核心的東西。